Be prepared for more responsibilities

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

IT’S quite clear that when we do some good, we should expect that our life can get more complicated. We are reminded of this fact of life in that gospel episode where Christ went to Peter’s house and cured his mother-in-law. Because of that, many more sick people went to see Christ for a cure. (cfr. Mk 1,29-39) In fact, it is said that the whole town went to him. 

Try to imagine how it was with Christ! Of course, Christ is Christ. He never runs out of strength, compassion, patience, etc. Still, we could not deny that his life got complicated.

The same fact of life was also highlighted in that parable of the three servants who were given some amount of money and told to do business with it. The first two who made money of the initial amount were given the responsibility of taking care of cities. (cfr. Mt 25,13-40) Obviously, when we do something bad, we would also complicate our life. But that’s another story.

Well, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. And so, we should just be prepared for it. Anyway, God is always around and is all ready to provide the help needed. We should not worry too much and just try whatever we can to handle the unavoidable complications.

Just the same, in that gospel episode, in spite of the many cures Christ made, he did not forget to pray, even making the effort to go to some isolated place to do his prayer calmly. And neither did he forget to carry out the more important responsibility to go to the other towns to preach and continue doing good.

This is a lesson for us to know how to handle the competing goals we have to pursue in life. We need to have a good sense of priority, and learn how to properly orchestrate the many responsibilities we have without getting lost or confused.

The secret here, I think, is to always refer everything to Christ. First of all, because we need to ask for grace that would enable us to do things they way he does them. And we, of course, need to follow his example.

Such effort would surely involve a certain detachment, since we tend to get attached to our own way of doing things rather than Christ’s way. Quite often, we get sentimental in these affairs, our emotions getting the better of us, and so we tend to fall into some disorder, since our reason and much more, our faith, that are supposed give us the better light, would be set aside.

Given this condition in our life, we should see to it that we live order in the best way we can. We need to be clear about the goals to pursue, and the different tasks we need to carry out. We have to be most careful with the use of our time. There are only 24 hours in a day, and we need to attend to more than a hundred things daily, including the rest that is due to us. We cannot afford to be wasteful of our time.

To be sure, we need to constantly examine and rectify our intentions, because with all the distractions that we are exposed to these days, we can easily stray from the right path dictated by our prudence. Thus, a lot of pit stops during the day are needed to see if we are still on track.

* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com